Yesterday was the conference, and I have to say it was truly a fascinating day. The guest speakers were fantastic, and we got to hear from people at length you ordinarily did not:

-Congressman Alan Grayson discussed why he was an odd duck in Congress, and why the average elected representative has no idea what is going on in finance and business.

-Nassim Taleb, author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, discussed the concept of risk, the problems with human nature, and why regulation so often fails. He was not only fascinating and informative, but damned funny. Its too bad that you only get the chance to hear him speak at length like this so rarely.

-Josh Rosner dazzled the audience with an impressive and granular analysis of the ongoing credit crisis, and why the banks are still going to have problems going for. His mastery of the subject and command of details blew people away, and I overheard a respected analyst and a journalist both say “Who is this guy? He is amazing? How is it that I have never heard of him before?” The short answer is his clients pay him big bucks for exclusive access. You will be seeing more of Josh in the public eye going forward.

-Daniel Gross (Newsweek, NYT, Slate) Jesse Eisinger (Portfolio, WSJ), Randall Forsyth (Barron’s) and Tom Keene, (Bloomberg Radio) were our Media Panel discussion on “How Did the Media Do? Did they miss the story until it was too late?” As I noted while moderating the group, I cheated — I loaded the panel with the guys who got this right, and had called out the problems before the rest of the Press even had a hint of it. They were terrific and informative.

-Doug Kass: I frequently complain that on TV, you only get a small flavor of Kass. I know him well, and our conversations are medlessly fascinating to me. This was much more like the latter than the former — Doug spoke uninterrupted, without having to shout or have people cut him off, for about 2 hours. His presentation was about a half hour, but then he took questions for 90 minutes. It was a treat.

The secrets to a great conference are this: 1) Only bring in people who are a) incredibly bright, knowledgeable experts; b) excellent communicators; and c) have tremendous track records of making money for their clients, partners or readers.

The 2nd secret? No Powerpoint allowed. This was huge, and a few people commented on it postiively afterwards.

~~~

The video of the conference will eventually find its way on line, and I will post when its ready.

Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

There is a video of Rosner doing his best to explain in plain terms the problems that still confront the banking industry…coupled with inane comments by a bunch of dolts as if they were dissing a Miley Cyrus outfit…

“Even after the increases, output and exports remain down by more than 30 percent from a year earlier, and the recession is spreading to consumers as companies cut jobs and paychecks. The unemployment rate climbed to a five-year high in April, when wages fell for an 11th month. ”

Story about Japan’s wages falling for 11 months with severe cutbacks by Japanese companies…

Although, I’m surprised by this: “The 2nd secret? No Powerpoint allowed. This was huge, and a few people commented on it postiively afterwards.” No visuals (charts, graphs, outlines, etc.) to orient the audience?!? I hope the attendees have good memories!

“…Daniel Gross (Newsweek, NYT, Slate) Jesse Eisinger (Portfolio, WSJ), Randall Forsyth (Barron’s) and Tom Keene, (Bloomberg Radio) were our Media Panel discussion on “How Did the Media Do? Did they miss the story until it was too late?” As I noted while moderating the group, I cheated — I loaded the panel with the guys who got this right, and had called out the problems before the rest of the Press even had a hint of it. They were terrific and informative.”

What are those journalists named above subject matter experts in? LOL

They are part of the same crowd of journalists with no quantitative abilities. They get their credibility from ‘talking’ to the real experts and then regurgitating it to the functional illiterates.

It is the reason the NYT ( a complete waste of trees even on recycled paper and so irrelevant ) will be history a year from now, and intelligent Americans now get their news and information from the Internet and blogs.

The first question I ask myself when I read, see or hear these people is, what are they subject matters expert in? If I can’t determine it instantly, I turn off my T.V. or skip the article I am reading.

Americans are sick of the propaganda and bias in the mainstream media.

~~~

BR: Your own bias is showing. Not everyone in the entire media got it wrong. Not everyone is clueless. Not everyone is ignorant. Not everyone missed the warning signs.

As an investor, it helps to be aware of your own prejudices and bigotry. We all rely upon other sources of information, but you seem to be unable to discern subtleties.

I wasn’t there, but I’d wager someone had something visual, somehow. Even Edward Tufte, who wrote an anti-Powerpoint manifesto has recommendations for how to use it properly (“as a slide projector”). The idea is to avoid lulling your audience to sleep, something endless bullet points will do.

Barry, thanks for a very informative day. The schedule was a full 8 hours of consistently interesting speakers, beginning with Rep. Grayson (he seems like one of a handful of congressmen who are financially literate) all the way through Doug Kass’s sharp and funny insights. The Q&A from the audience was focused and stimulating. The sandwiches were good too. I look forward to seeing the conference again when you post the video.

In corporate and government bureaucracies, the standard method for making a presentation is to talk about a list of points organized onto slides projected up on the wall. For many years, overhead projectors lit up transparencies, and slide projectors showed high-resolution 35mm slides. Now “slideware” computer programs for presentations are nearly everywhere. Early in the 21st century, several hundred million copies of Microsoft PowerPoint were turning out trillions of slides each year.

Alas, slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis. What is the problem with PowerPoint? And how can we improve our presentations?

The associated 32-page pamphlet is great, going in to great detail on the perils of Powerpoint.

“Alan Grayson discussed why he was an odd duck in Congress, and why the average elected representative has no idea what is going on in finance and business.”

looking forward to hearing this one and the others although I live in RI so I don’t need Alan Grayson to tell me why “my” reps and senators have no idea what is going on…..finanace and business included.

[...] Barry Ritholtz’s The Big Picture Conference here in New York this week was a big success. Here are Barry’s notes from the event itself, including yet another example of why Doug Kass is The Reformed Broker’s fave commentator: Big Picture Conference. [...]

Say Hello

About Barry Ritholtz

Ritholtz has been observing capital markets with a critical eye for 20 years. With a background in math & sciences and a law school degree, he is not your typical Wall St. persona. He left Law for Finance, working as a trader, researcher and strategist before graduating to asset managementRead More...

Quote of the Day

"We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are." -Anais Nin

Sign Up For My Newsletter

Get subscriber only insights and news delivered by Barry every two weeks.